Chapter Sixteen.
Home.
Margaret had an unconscious expectation of seeing her sister altered. This is an irresistible persuasion in almost every case where an intimate friend is absent, and is under new influences, and amidst new circumstances. These accessories alter the image of the beloved one in our minds; our fancy follows it, acting and being acted upon in ways in which we have no share. Our sympathy is at fault, or we conceive it to be so; and doubt and trouble creep over us, we scarcely know why. Though the letters which come may be natural and hearty, as of old, breathing the very spirit of our friend, we feel a sort of surprise at the handwriting being quite familiar. We look forward with a kind of timidity to meeting, and fear there may be some restraint in it. When the hour of meeting comes, there is the very same face, the line of the cheek, the trick of the lip, the glance of the eye; the rise and fall of the voice are the same; and the intense familiarity makes our very spirit swim in joy. We are amazed at our previous fancy—we laugh at the solemn stiffness in which our friend stood before our mind’s eye, and to relieve which we had striven to recall the ludicrous situations and merry moods in which that form and that face had been seen; and perhaps we have no peace till we have acknowledged to the beloved one the ingenuity of our self-tormentings. Is there a girl whose heart is with her brother at college, who does not feel this regularly as the vacation comes round? Is there a parent whose child is reaping honours in the field of life, and returning childlike from time to time, to rest in the old country-home—is there such a parent who is not conscious of the misgiving and the re-assurance, as often as the absence and the re-union occur? Is there even the most trustful of wives, whose husband is on the other side of the globe, that is wholly undisturbed by the transmutation of the idol in her mind? When the husband is returning, and her hungry heart is feasting on the anticipation of his appearance, she may revel in the thought—
“And will I see his face again,
And will I hear him speak?”
But it is not till that vivid face and that piercing voice thrill her sight and her ear again that all misgiving vanishes. There is nothing in life that can compensate for long partings. There ought to be few or no insurmountable obstacles to the frequent meetings, however short, of those who love each other. No duties and no privileges can be of more importance than the preservation, in all their entireness, of domestic familiarity and faith.
A very short separation will afford the experience of a long one, if it be full of events, or if the image of the absent one be dwelt upon, from hour to hour, with laborious strivings of the fancy. It has been said that this week of Hester’s absence was the longest that Margaret had ever known. Besides this, she felt that she had forgotten her sister further than she could have supposed possible after a ten years’ separation. On the evening when she was expecting the travellers home, her heart was sick with expectation; and yet she was conscious of a timidity which made her feel as if alone in the world. Again and again she looked round her, to fancy what would be the aspect, of everything to Hester’s eye. She wandered about the house to see once more that all was in its right place, and every arrangement in due order. She watched the bright drawing-room fire nervously, and made herself anxious about the tea-table, and sat upright on the sofa, listening for the sound of horses’ feet in the snowy street, as if it had been a solemn stranger that she was expecting, instead of her own sister Hester, with whom she had shared all her heart, and spent all her days. But a small part of this anxiety was given to Mr Hope: she retained her image of him unperplexed, as a treasure of a brother, and a man with a mind so healthy that he was sure to receive all things rightly, and be pleased and satisfied, happen what might.
They came; and Hester’s spring from the carriage, and her husband’s way of rubbing his hands over the fire, put all Margaret’s anxieties to flight. How sweet was the welcome! How delicious the contest about which was to give the welcome to this, the lasting home of the three—whether she who had put all in order for them, or they who claimed to have the charge of her! Margaret’s eyes overflowed when Hester led her to Edward for his brotherly kiss. Mr Hope’s mind was disturbed for one single moment that he had not given this kiss with all the heartiness and simplicity of a brother; but the feeling was gone almost before he was conscious of it.
The fire crackled, the kettle sang, Hester took her own place at once at the tea-board, and her husband threw himself on the sofa, after ascertaining that there were no family letters for him. He knew that it was impossible that there should be any in answer to the announcement of his marriage. Even Anne’s could not arrive these four or five days yet. He desired Margaret not to tell him at present if there were any messages for him; for, if all Deerbrook had colds, he had no inclination to go out to-night to cure them. There was a long list of messages, Margaret said, but they were in the surgery; and the pupil there might bring them in, if he thought proper: they should not be sent for. This one evening might be stolen for home and comfort. Their journey had been delightful. Oxford was more splendid than Hester had had an idea of. Every facility had been afforded them for seeing it, and Mr Hope’s acquaintances there had been as kind as possible. The fall of snow had not put them in any danger, and the inconveniences it had caused were rather stimulating to people who had travelled but little. Hester had had to get out of the carriage twice; and once she had walked a mile, when the driver had been uncertain about the road; but as Mrs Grey had had the foresight to cause a pair of snow boots to be put into the carriage at the last moment, no harm had happened,—not even to the wetting of feet; only enough inconvenience to make them glad to be now by their snug fireside. Hester was full of mirth and anecdote. She seemed to have been pleased with everybody and awake to everything. As her sister looked upon her brow, now open as a sleeping child’s, upon the thick curl of glossy brown hair, and upon the bright smile which lighted up her exquisite face, she was amazed at herself for having perplexed such an image with apprehensive fancies.
How had Margaret spent her week? Above all, it was to be hoped she had not fatigued herself in their service. There were four days’ grace yet for preparation, before they should receive their company. Margaret should not have worked so hard. Had Maria Young come yesterday? Dear Maria! she must often come. Should not the Greys be asked to dine in a quiet way, before any one else was admitted into the house? Was it not due to them? But could the footboy wait at table? Would it be possible to bring him into such training as would prevent Mrs Grey’s being too much shocked at their way of getting through dinner? Or was there any one in Deerbrook who went out as a waiter? Morris must be consulted; but they must have the Greys to dinner before Monday. How was Mrs Enderby? Was her illness really thought serious, or was it only Mrs Rowland’s way of talking, which was just the same, whether Mrs Enderby had a twinge of rheumatism or one of her frightful attacks? Was Mr Enderby coming?—that was the chief point. If he did not appear, it was certain that he could not be feeling uneasy about his mother. Margaret blushed when she replied that she had not heard of Mr Enderby’s being expected. She could not but blush; for the conversation with Maria came full into her mind. Mr Hope saw the blush, and painfully wondered that it sent trouble through his soul.
How were Morris and the new maid likely to agree? Did Morris think the girl promising? Surely it was time to take some notice of the servants. Edward would ring the bell twice, the signal for Morris; and Morris should introduce the other two into the parlour. They came, Morris in her best gown, and with her wedding ribbon on. When she had shaken hands with her master and mistress, and spoken a good word for her fellow-servants, as she called them, the ruddy-faced girl appeared, her cheeks many shades deeper than usual, and her cap quillings standing off like the rays on a sign-post picture of the sun. Following her came the boy, feeling awkward in his new clothes, and scraping with his left leg till the process was put a stop to by his master’s entering into conversation with him. Hester’s beauty was really so striking, as with a blushing bashfulness, she for the first time enacted the mistress before her husband’s eyes, that it was impossible not to observe it. Margaret glanced towards her brother, and they exchanged smiles. But the effect of Margaret’s smile was that Mr Hope’s died away, and left him grave.
“Brother!” said Margaret; “what is the true story belonging to that great book about the Polar Sea, that you see lying there?”
“How do you mean? Is there any story belonging to it at all?”
“Three at least; and Deerbrook has been so hot about it—”
“You should send round the book to cool them. It is enough to freeze one to look at the plates of those polar books.”
“Sending round the book is exactly the thing I wanted to do, and could not. Mrs Rowland insists that Mrs Enderby ordered it in; and Mrs Grey demands to have it first; and Mr Rowland is certain that you bespoke it before anybody else. I was afraid of the responsibility of acting in so nice a case. An everlasting quarrel might come out of it: so I covered it, and put in the list, all ready to be sent at a moment’s warning; and then I amused myself with it while you were away. Now, brother, what will you do?”
“The truth of the matter is, that I ordered it in myself, as Mr Rowland says. But Mrs Enderby shall have it at once, because she is ill. It is a fine large type for her; and she will pore over the plates, and forget Deerbrook and all her own ailments, in wondering how the people will get out of the ice.”
“Do you remember, Margaret,” said Hester, “how she looked one summer day,—like a ghost from the grave,—when she came down from her books, and had even forgotten her shawl?”
“Oh, about the battle!” cried Margaret, laughing.
“What battle?” asked Hope. “An historical one, I suppose, and not that of the Rowlands and Greys. Mrs Enderby is of a higher order than the rest of us Deerbrook people: she gets most of her news, and all her battles, out of history.”
“Yes: she alighted among us to tell us that such a great, such a wonderful battle had been fought, at a place called Blenheim, by the Duke of Marlborough, who really seemed a surprisingly clever man: it was such a good thought of his to have a swamp at one end of his line, and to put some of his soldiers behind some bushes, so that the enemy could not get at them! and he won the battle.”
“This book will be the very thing for her,” said Margaret. “It is only a pity that it did not come in at Midsummer instead of Christmas. I am afraid she will sympathise so thoroughly that Phoebe will never be able to put on coals enough to warm her.”
“Nay,” said Mr Hope, “it is better as it is. She must be told now, at all events: whereas, if this book came to her at Midsummer, it would chill her whole month of July. She would start every time she looked out of her window, and saw the meadows green.”
“I hope she is not really very ill,” said Hester.
“You were thinking the same thought that I was,” said her husband, starting up from the sofa. “It is certainly my business to go and see her to-night, if she wishes it. I will step down into the surgery, and learn if there is any message from her.”
“And if there is not from her, there will be from some one else,” said Hester, sorrowfully. “What a cold night for you to go out, and leave this warm room!”
Mr Hope laughed as he observed what an innocent speech that was for a surgeon’s wife. It was plain that her education in that capacity had not begun. And down he went.
“Here are some things for you, cards and notes,” said Margaret to her sister, as she opened a drawer of the writing-table: “one from Mrs Grey, marked ‘Private.’ I do not suppose your husband may not see it; but that is your affair. My duty is to give it you privately.”
“One of the Grey mysteries, I suppose,” said Hester, colouring, and tearing open the letter with some vehemence: “These mysteries were foolish enough before; they are ridiculous now. So, you are going out?” cried she, as her husband came in with his hat on.
“Yes; the old lady will be the easier for my seeing her this evening; and I shall carry her the Polar Sea. Where is pen and ink, Margaret? We do not know the ways of our own house yet.”
Margaret brought pen and ink; and while Mr Hope wrote down the dates in the Book Society’s list, Hester exclaimed against Mrs Grey for having sent her a letter marked “Private,” now that she was married.
“If you mean it not to be private, you shall tell me about it when I come back,” said her husband. “If I see Mrs Enderby to-night, I must be gone.”
It was not twenty minutes before he was seated by his own fireside again. His wife looked disturbed; and was so; she even forgot to inquire after Mrs Enderby.
“There is Mrs Grey’s precious letter!” said she. “She may mean to be very kind to me: I dare say she does: but she might know that it is not kindness to write so of my husband.”
“I do not see that she writes any harm of me, my dear,” said he, laying the letter open upon the table. “She only wants to manage me a little: and that is her way, you know.”
“So exceedingly impertinent!” cried Hester, turning to Margaret. “She wants me to use my influence, quietly, and without betraying her, to make my husband—,” she glanced into her husband’s face, and checked her communication. “In short,” she said, “Mrs Grey wants to be meddling between my husband and one of his patients.”
“Well, what then?” said Margaret.
“What then? Why, if she is to be interfering already in our affairs—if she is to be always fancying that she has anything to do with Edward,—and we living so near,—I shall never be able to bear it.”
And Hester’s eyes overflowed with tears.
“My dear! is it possible?” cried Edward. “Such a trifle—.”
“It is no trifle,” said Hester, trying to command her voice; “it can never be a trifle to me that any one shows disrespect to you. I shall never be able to keep terms with any one who does.”
Margaret believed that nothing would be easier than to put a stop to any such attempts—if indeed they were serious. Mrs Grey was so fond of Hester that she would permit anything from her; and it would be easy for Hester to say that, not wishing to receive any exclusively private letters, she had shown Mrs Grey’s to her husband, though to no one else: and that it was to be the principle of the family not to interfere, more or less, with Mr Hope’s professional affairs.
“Or, better still, take no notice of the matter in any way whatever, this time,” said Mr Hope. “We can let her have her way while we keep our own, cannot we? So, let us put the mysterious epistle into the fire—shall we? I wait your leave,” said he, laughing, as he held the letter over the flame.
“It is your property.”
Hester signed to have it burned; but she could not forget it. She recurred to Mrs Grey, again and again. “So near as they lived,” she said—“so much as they must be together.”
“The nearer we all live, and the more we must be with our neighbours,” said her husband, “the more important it is that we should allow each other our own ways. You will soon find what it is to live in a village, my love; and then you will not mind these little trifles.”
“If they would meddle only with me,” said Hester, “I should not mind. I hope you do not think I should care so much for anything they could say or do about me. If they only would let you alone—”
“That is the last thing we can expect,” said Margaret. “Do they let any public man alone? Dr Levitt, or Mr James?”
“Or the parish clerk?” added Mr Hope. “It was reported lately that steps were to be taken to intimate to Owen, that it was a constant habit of his to cough as he took his seat in the desk. I was told once myself, that it was remarked throughout Deerbrook that I seemed to be half whistling as I walked up the street in the mornings; and that it was considered a practice too undignified for my profession.”
Hester’s colour rose again. Margaret laughed, and asked:
“What did you do?”
“I made my best bow, and thought no more about the matter, till events brought it to mind again at this moment. So, Hester, suppose we think no more of Mrs Grey’s hints?” Seeing that her brow did not entirely clear, he took his seat by her, saying:
“Supposing, love, that her letter does not show enough deference to my important self to satisfy you, still it remains that we owe respect to Mrs Grey. She is one of my oldest, and most hospitable, and faithful friends here; and I need say nothing of her attachment to you. Cannot we overlook in her one little error of judgment?”
“Oh, yes, certainly,” said Hester, cheerfully. “Then I will say nothing to her unless she asks; and then tell her, as lightly as I may, what Margaret proposed just now. So be it.”
And all was bright and smooth again—to all appearance. But this little cloud did not pass away without leaving its gloom in more hearts than one. As Margaret set down her lamp on her own writing-table, and sank into the chair of whose ease she had bidden Maria make trial, she might have decided, if she had happened at the moment to remember the conversation, that the pleasure of solitude does depend much on the ease of the thoughts. She sat long, wondering how she could have overlooked the obvious probability that Hester, instead of finding the habit of mind of a lifetime altered by the circumstances of love and marriage, would henceforth suffer from jealousy for her husband in addition to the burden she had borne for herself. Long did Margaret sit there, turning her voluntary musings on the joy of their meeting, and the perfect picture of comfort which their little party had presented; but perpetually recurring, against her will, to the trouble which had succeeded, and following back the track of this cloud, to see whether there were more in the wind—whether it did not come from a horizon of storm.
Yet hers was not the most troubled spirit in the house. Hester’s vexation had passed away, and she was unconscious, as sufferers of her class usually are, of the disturbance she had caused. She presently slept and was at peace. Not so her husband. A strange trouble—a fearful suspicion had seized upon him. He was amazed at the return of his feelings about Margaret, and filled with horror when he thought of the days, and months, and years of close domestic companionship with her, from which there was no escape. There was no escape. The peace of his wife, of Margaret—his own peace in theirs—depended wholly on the deep secrecy in which he should preserve the mistake he had made. It was a mistake. He could scarcely endure the thought; but it was so. For some months, he had never had a doubt that he was absolutely in the road of duty; and, if some apprehension about his entire happiness had chilled him, from time to time, he had cast them off, as inconsistent with the resolution of his conscience. Now he feared, he felt he had mistaken his duty. As, in the stillness of the night, the apprehension assailed him, that he had thrown away the opportunity and the promise of his life—that he had desecrated his own home, and doomed to withering the best affections of his nature, he for the moment wished himself dead. But his was a soul never long thrown off its balance. He convinced himself, in the course of a long sleepless night, that whatever might have been his errors, his way was now clear, though difficult. He must devote himself wholly to her whose devotion to him had caused him his present struggles; and he must trust that, if Margaret did not ere long remove from the daily companionship which must be his sorest trial, he should grow perpetually stronger in his self-command. Of one thing he was certain—that no human being suspected the real state of his mind. This was a comfort and support. Of something else he felt nearly certain—that Margaret loved Philip. This was another comfort, if he could only feel it so; and he had little doubt that Philip loved her. He had also a deep conviction, which he now aroused for his support—that no consecration of a home is so holy as that of a kindly, self-denying, trustful spirit in him who is the head and life of his house. If there was in himself a love which must be denied, there was also one which might be indulged. Without trammelling himself with vows, he cheered his soul with the image of the life he might yet fulfil, shedding on all under his charge the blessings of his activity, patience, and love; and daily casting off the burden of the day, leaving all care for the morrow to such as, happier than himself, would have the future the image of the present.